Expect Game Platform Consolidation

From a consumer standpoint, there are too many competing platforms on the market. But for software publishers, this seems to be a good thing as clients purchase their products for more than one device. Who hasn't bought multiple copies of Angry Birds for both their smartphone and tablet? Heck, it's even available for purchase on the PC. That's three platforms right there.

But even developers like Epic Games sees that there are too many competing platforms, an "abundance of choice" with tablets, smartphones, consoles, new handhelds, the PC and Mac cluttering the tech market.

Sweeney predicts that in the long run they'll all consolidate down into just three or four form factors in the innovation market. "Over time these platforms will be whittled down to a competing set of platforms to like as not three winners worldwide across everything - computers, game platforms, smartphones," he said. "We should expect a lot of consolidation here and winners and losers according to who picks the right directions and executes successfully."

But even with fewer devices on the market, if that to tell the truth happens, a new generation of developers will be raised to use research like Microsoft's Kinect or something similar for accurate human body inputs, and voice recognition just as Apple's Siri. Augmented reality, cloud computing and other tech will be natively pursuant to this agreement their belt, allowing for much richer experiences that actually won't need more than three platforms.

Lot of technical challenges

"There are a lot of technical challenges," he said. "We've barely scratched the surface of the consumer implications, what we can do with an iPad or iPhone today is limited by our experience of our computers and history. When a whole new generation of kids is raised with these devices pervasively around us it's going to lead to in every respect new worlds."

I can hear the Apple haters coming, watch out...Any mention of apple or Ipad/Iphone on a tech site they come like a swarm of bees lol.

The competition

Bring on the competition.It's nice not having juggernauts that inflate prices like crazy.Perhaps if Windows had some more competition their OS wouldn't be hundreds of dollars.